Tuesday, 4 April 2017

Censorious French fanatics

This case was introduced following the broadcast of a TV program
consisting in filming, during a dinner, several guests from various
backgrounds, which showed three famous persons smoking.

Both the broadcaster, the company managing the channel’s website
(from which viewers could access the TV program by means of catch-up
TV), and their directors, were sued on the grounds that the French
public health code prohibits the propaganda and the advertising, direct
or indirect, in favor of tobacco.

Sacré bleu!

The question that was asked to the Cour de cassation was whether the
showing of notorious people smoking in a TV program was to be
considered as tobacco advertising.

The Court of appeal of Paris had decided that the broadcast of the
sequences showing the guests smoking, action that could be interpreted
as a moment of pleasure, participated to a promotion in favor of
tobacco. The Court held that it was the case even though there was no
additional comment to highlight this moment.

The Court of appeal also found that the sequences could have been
deleted during the editing of the TV program, and that such deletion
would not have affected the comprehensibility of the debates nor it
would have violated the freedom of expression.

You really couldn't it up. Has the whole world been driven insane by the health gestapo?

Not quite the whole world, it seems...

However, the Cour de cassation did not follow the Court of appeal’s
reasoning. It considered that the mere fact that persons were showed
smoking during a TV program does not constitute advertising in favor of
tobacco.
No kidding! The case needed to go to the highest court in the land to establish that?! How many lawyers got rich of this ludicrous court case? Who instigated it?

About Me

Writer and researcher at the Institute of Economic Affairs. Blogging in a personal capacity.
Author of Selfishness, Greed and Capitalism (2015), The Art of Suppression (2011), The Spirit Level Delusion (2010) and Velvet Glove, Iron Fist (2009).

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."